As a nation state, Italy has emerged only in 1871. Until then the country was politically divided into a large number of independant cities, provinces and islands. The currently available evidences point out to a dominant Etruscan, Greek and Roman cultural influence on today's Italians.

Dear Dave Sephardic Jews emanated from all parts of the Mediterranean starting with the Jewish exodus to Alexandria during Alexanders reign and assumption of the Greek Pharoahic dynasty by Alexanders friend and confidant Ptolomey who later became the GGGrandfather to Cleopatra. When the Saracen swept across the North African coast to eventually Spain, Sicily and southern Italy, the jewish population became both educators to and adminstrators for the Caliphs who were busy with governance.

Hence the establishment of the first University of Medicine in Palermo and Naples in the western world to which we credit both Jews and Arabs along with bound hand carried books....the first recorded in Spain at the University of Salamanca.

The Inquisition leading to the deportation of Arabs and Jews from Spain left a legacy for the renaissance emerging in Italy. =Peter=

Thanks ALP70 and misbris, that is the correct link, the www was unnecessary. It's a good site, but mostly of artifacts: gravestones, coinage, inscriptions. All say no translation for Akragas.

But a general web search brings up info that the city was between the Hypsas and Akragas Rivers. One coin shows Akragas as a river god. Wikipedia says the origin of the name is unclear, but generally believed to be named for a founder, akragante and the name modified. Another says the residents claimed Daedalus as the founder, but settlers from Gela, Sicily colonized it.

Cima-Jewish surname?I have recently been told that my grandfather, Giovanni Cima, was of Jewish descent (from a family that had converted but maintained ties with the Jewish community). The only Cimas I have discovered that have ties to the Jewish community is the family of Annalisa Cima, the poetess, which was somehow connected to the family of Giorgio Issel, of Genova, who was a partisan of Jewish origin. The info I found makes it clear that her mother's family(Schlesinger) was Jewish, but not if her father's family, the Cimas, was as well. They were industrialists who started the Cima Cartiere Company in the Bergamo area. Can anybody give me some information or guidance? The name doesn't appear in any of the usual lists of Italian Jews, but there are Chemas in pre-1492 Spain.(and variations throughout the Levant) I am also confused because Cima is apparently a female first name among Eastern European Jews, but I can't find out what it means

Cima appears to have been derived from Scima was known as Cima meaning Lime in Tunis during the middle ages. There may be other meanings for Cima in eastern europe as names evolve. The prgression for surnames is nickname becoming first name becoming surname. =Peter=-

Hello everyone..
well I can say that MarinoÂ´s family or MarinhoÂ´family are both jews name... The parents of my grandmom come from Italy and they are jews,,, they came to Brazil and lived in Rio de Janeiro for a while till they left it for Minas Gerais state... I hope it helps about wht u r searching for...

obiinc wrote:I have a friend who lives in Israel who told me that the surname "Marano" comes from the name given to Jews who emigrated to Spain during the 12th and 13th centuries. This was my maiden name and he wondered if there could be any Jewish heritage in my family. Anyone have any info on that?

Marano means swine. It denotes a converso (a forced convert from Judaism to Catholicism). My wifes family from Mexico are Marranos. They even held many Jewish traditions while still practicing Catholicism to this day. My family being from northern Italy came to Spring Valley, Ill, in the early 1900's. They were definately Catholic when they landed. But they had the name Palai, which denotes a high possibility that they were conversos from Palai-Tyrol (an ancient location of Jewish slaves from Roman Palastine). Many Jews were sent to No Italy and whats now Slovenia (Maribor) during the time of King Herod to quarry marble to expand the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Most of these people assimilated into Roman-Italian and Austro-Hungarian Catholic familys during the times of the Inquisition. When I discovered this history, I converted back to Judaism.

Thats a good analogy. However, I have nothing against folks who find a path to God through the church. I hold a firm belief that Jesus was sent to teach the pagan cultures (Romans and Greeks) about monotheism, and although they held to many of their own traditions, Jesus seems to have done a pretty good job. Another conjecture I hold is Jesus is a part of the ingathering of the lost ten tribes who assimilated into the four corners of the ancient world. There are heavy etymological simillarities between paleo-semitic languages (Phoenician, Hebrew and Basque) languages and there are intersting simillarities between Ba'al worship (the god the ten northern tribes turned to when they split and built their own Temple in Bethel) and the Druid and Celtic cults. Goddess worship and human sacrifice are a great example of this cultural connection. Homers Odessey also illustrates that the Mediteranians traveled as far as the Hebrides (where the tidal whirlpools for human sacrifice are located.) It's a small world after all... Although this is not foregoing the likely possibility that slave trade and sexual domination (raping and piliging) between cultures contributed to the mixing of tounges (no pun intended). There are loads of articles on l;iguistic archeology at Google books covering this subject. This one is very interesting; although alot of it is Greek to me...

"Being an ancient people, Jews were in most countries from long ago. I wonder if other countries (Poland, Russia) did the same and there are citizens with names of towns, provinces etc. also. I'll have to ask some friends, or look up their names in a map search."

"Being an ancient people, Jews were in most countries from long ago. I wonder if other countries (Poland, Russia) did the same and there are citizens with names of towns, provinces etc. also. I'll have to ask some friends, or look up their names in a map search."

if someone understands german here links about jewish-names in Austria,specially Vienna - very interesting. it was also usual in other countries to take names of place they came or showing their occupation or taken about anything other....but not all people who have a name looking to be jewish are also jews. often jews have also taken not-typical jewish names. and if had taken a new name so most time the name was in the language of the country they just lived in.
Zum Namenswechsel jÃ¼disch-protestantischer Konvertiten in Wien, 1782 - 1914: http://www.judentum.net/geschichte/namenswechsel.htmDie RÃ¼ckkehr zum Judentum in Wien von 1868 bis 1878:
http://www.judentum.net/geschichte/rueckkehr.htmDer Namenswechsel jÃ¼discher Konvertiten in Wien von 1748 bis 1868: http://www.judentum.net/geschichte/konvertiten.htm

The only truly Jewish surnames are those of Hebrew origin. All others are European names that are sometimes carried by Jews for various historical reasons. But there's no more reason to suspect that an Italian named "Ferro" or "Marano" has Jewish roots than there is to suspect the same of a German named "Klein" or a Brit named "Green". These are European names, first and foremost, with roots in Indo-European languages.

The legal requirements for recognition of Italian citizenship claims made by persons born abroad, but whose births were never registered with an Italian consular agency, vary considerably according to particular circumstances, and also depend upon existing treaties between the Italian Republic and v...

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